The Problem with Homemade Food!

      Recently one of my readers (Urspo of Spo-Reflections) left a comment about the home-made tortillas I made a few weeks ago. He had never made them and he wondered if home-made was better than store bought. Definitely they are better, but here's the thing...

     Growing up everything we had was home-made. Mom made home-made tortillas, usually flour but often corn tortillas as well. 

     I can remember she would give me a little round ball of flour masa (masa=dough) and I had my own little rolling pin and I would roll out my tortilla over and over again, often times dropping it on the floor and by the time I was done, it was dingy and dirty and mom would cook it for me on her comal, see photo below. (Comal=Cast Iron Griddle) 

     I don't think she actually cooked mine, I'm pretty sure when I wasn't watching she would throw it away and give me one of her tortillas that was clean and perfectly round. She would place a big pat of butter in the middle and I would cut little pieces of the tortilla and dip it in the butter which was starting to melt and it was the best thing I ever tasted in my whole life. Same thing with the corn tortillas...nothing better than a fresh home-made corn tortilla with butter!

     Fast forward to the introduction of the flour and corn tortillas in the stores. I'm not sure exactly when that was but whenever it was, that was when my mom decided that the tortillas she could buy in the store were healthier than the home-made ones, and you want to know why? Because when you buy them in the store, you don't see the flour and lard that goes into them, so of course they seem healthier.

     So we went from having home-made tortillas made simply with flour, lard, salt and baking powder (and my mother's love), to having commercially made tortillas made with Enriched Bleach Flour, Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamine Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid, Vegetable Shortening (interesterified and hydrogenated soybean oils), Salt, Sugar, Baking Soda, Sodium Acid, Pyrophosphate, Distilled Monoglycerides, Fumaric Acid and Calcium Propionate and Sorbic Acid (to maintain freshness).

     And we wonder why we are so much more unhealthy than our ancestors? 

     So yes Urspo, home-made tortillas are better, they taste better and they are actually healthier for us. But of course the best thing is not to eat them at all, but c'mon...who are we kidding, we're not going to stop eating them, they are just too good!

     I had never heard the word "interesterified" and google is telling me it's misspelled, but it doesn't offer any meaning or corrected spelling, so I googled it. don't Google it, sometimes what you don't know can't hurt you.

Tomasa's Child and Homemade Flour Tortillas

When I was a little girl, there was nothing better in the whole world than a homemade flour tortilla made by my own dear mom.

I remember that she would knead the flour, lard (because we didn’t use the much lighter shortening or oil that we use now, we used big huge blocks of lard) baking powder, salt and water in a big bowl. I loved watching her hands, strong and sure working the dough.



Little Balls of Dough



Then she would make these perfect little balls of dough. I made the ones in this photo and they are not perfect at all, but mom's were. She would then line them all up on a clean dish towel, ready to be rolled out into perfectly round tortillas.



Mom would always give my sister and me our own little ball of dough which we would pretend to knead and roll out as she did. Sometimes, depending on our mood, we wouldn’t knead or roll it out; we would instead form it into animal shapes, like it was clay.



Here's the rolling out in process



When my mom was done making the family tortillas, she would have us roll out our little ball of dough and she would place it on the “comal” which was made out of cast iron and heated over the open flame on the stove. We would watch her flip our little tortilla around until it was perfectly browned on both sides. We couldn’t wait to eat them!



This is the Cast Iron Comal



Mom would slice a pat of real butter which had been softening to room temperature and sit us down, each with our little tortilla. She taught us to rip off little pieces of the tortilla and dip them into the warm, melting, sweet butter. There was nothing better! We felt as though we had cooked these tortillas ourselves, my sister and I. Sometimes we would save them for our dad to eat so he knew his little girls had been slaving away making tortillas for him.



Comal with a Tortilla



My mom was great at including us in on her regular household chores and making it fun and like a game for us. We didn’t need fancy play-doh with all the little accessories they come with now. We just needed the plain tortilla dough, our imagination and our wonderful mother by our side. My mom's name is Tomasa and I am her child.

This post is inspired by the novel Julia's Child by Sarah Pinneo. Worried about what her kids eat, Julia Bailey starts a prepared organic toddler meals business. With names like Gentil Lentil, can Julia balance work and family and still save the world? Join From Left to Write on May 24 as we discuss Julia's Child. As a member, I received a copy of the book for review purposes.

 

What to do when it's cold outside...COOK!

Today I awoke to a rainy, overcast day. I LOVE days like this! But it was a bit chilly and I get cold easily. Right now it’s about 54 degrees outside, so I decided the best way to keep warm is to cook something. I thought about making Popovers using this recipe. That way my oven would be on and it would warm up the house. But then I remembered the Mexican popover…the tortilla!

I haven’t made tortillas in years, but it sounded like fun. I tried to make them from memory. When I was a girl we used to make tortillas all the time, flour and corn. Nowadays I can just drive a few blocks to our local grocery store, but growing up, we always lived on the ranches my dad worked for and they were all miles and miles away from stores. So we made stuff from scratch.

Here’s a picture of the finished product. And rolling these out does warm you up, so does cooking them.




Since I made them from scratch I kind of had to estimate what I used. The recipe below will make about 10 10-inch tortillas.

2 cups Flour (I used Pillsbury All Purpose Flour)
½ cup shortening (I used Crisco, but when I was a girl we used Lard)
1 tsp salt
1 ½ tsp Baking Powder
¾ to 1 cup warm water

In a large bowl first combine the flour, shortening, salt and baking powder. Using your hands, breakup the shortening, mixing it with the other ingredients. Then add water a little at a time until the dough gets kind of sticky and comes together. Then knead it until its smooth and elastic. I like to transfer it to my the wooden board I’m going to use to actually roll out the tortillas and knead it there. Then you separate the dough into little flat balls as shown below.




Before you start rolling out the tortillas, get your comal ready by placing it directly on the stove with medium heat. A picture of my comal is shown below. This one was given to me by my mother many years ago. It’s been used so often (though not by me J) that it has started to crack. My son uses it regularly for toasting hamburger buns and making quesadillas. If you don’t happen to own a comal, you can use a non-stick frying pan.

Here's a video showing how to roll out the tortillas and then step by step pictures.

So that’s it. It’s really simple and a nice treat. Now I’ll be honest, I prefer store bought tortilla’s, but it is fun to make them and it gives you bragging rights cause not too many people make homemade tortillas.

My dad makes homemade corn tortillas. I’m going to see if next weekend he can make some for us and I’ll do a blog and a video showing his technique and his homemade corn tortilla press, you’re gonna love it!